The Real Bully Running for President

Last week Washington Post ran a story attempting to portray presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a homophobic bully. Despite every effort to contain it, the story imploded, as factual inaccuracies came to light. Furthermore, the victim’s own sisters (he died of liver cancer in 2004) claimed to have no knowledge of incident, with one of them telling ABC News, “If he were still alive today, he would be furious.” Yet as is often the case with highly publicized news stories, other mainstream media outlets attempted to keep the thematic aspect of the piece alive, irrespective of the facts. Thus, when former Newt Gingrich campaign manager Rick Tyler showed up for an MSNBC interview with Martin Bashir, Bashir attempted to do exactly that. Tyler was having none of it. “I would consider things like Barack Obama bullying the Supreme Court, bullying the EPA, bullying hundreds of property owners and business owners, bullying donors to the Romney campaign. That’s what bullying is when they have an effect on private citizens not people running against them but people who disagree with them politically,” said Tyler. “That’s bullying!”

Tyler’s assessment of the current president is spot on. Moreover, one need not go back almost five decades to underscore that reality. As recently as April 26th, the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel revealed that one of the Obama re-election campaign websites, “The Truth Team,” published “Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney’s donors.” It was an ugly attempt to slur and intimidate donors to Mitt Romney’s election campaign. Eight private citizens were described as having “less-than-reputable records,” being “on the wrong side of the law” and making themselves successful at “the expense of so many Americans.”

“These are people like Paul Schorr and Sam and Jeffrey Fox, investors who the site outed for the crime of having ‘outsourced’ jobs,” writes Strassel. “T. Martin Fiorentino is scored for his work for a firm that forecloses on homes. Louis Bacon (a hedge-fund manager), Kent Burton (a ‘lobbyist’) and Thomas O’Malley (an energy CEO) stand accused of profiting from oil. Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of a home-products firm, is slimed as a ‘bitter foe of the gay rights movement.'”

One of those men, Frank VanderSloot, did an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, expressing what it was like to be on a presidential “enemies list.” “Sure enough then the attacks started coming I really thought I’d made a mistake,” he told Susteren. “As I thought about it, I thought, ‘this is America and we can’t let these tactics intimidate us,’ and so I remain undeterred.” Yet VanderSloot also noted that the media “have lodged all kinds of innuendo in my direction, accused me of all kinds of bad things. People have called my children. They’ve been surfing their LinkedIn sites. They’ve been asking interviews of my kids.” VanderSloot also revealed that a “former U.S. Senate investigator” and “member of the sub-committee on Homeland Security” is doing an investigation of him and his family, which “worried him a lot.”

Strassel confirmed that outrage, noting that “a man named Michael Wolf contacted the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho Falls in search of court records regarding Mr. VanderSloot. Specifically, Mr. Wolf wanted all the documents dealing with Mr. VanderSloot’s divorces, as well as a case involving a dispute with a former Melaleuca employee.” She further revealed that “Mr. Wolf was, until a few months ago, a law clerk on the Democratic side of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.”

Arnold Ahlert is a former NY Post op-ed columnist currently contributing to JewishWorldReview.com, HumanEvents.com and CanadaFreePress.com. He may be reached at atahlert@comcast.net.

No Quarter

This has long been the M.O. of the Democrat Party, and it amounts to "projection" of the most unsavory sort. Democrats ALWAYS accuse their political rivals of the exact same things that they constantly do themselves (with impunity, I might add). You name it – whether it's charges of racism, corruption, fraud, crony capitalism, and on and on, you can be assured that whatever charges the Democrats level at the GOP, they are practicing the the same malfeasance a hundredfold. They are despicable, but people are getting wise to their phony baloney, and it has much less impact than it once did.

James

Vandersloot is a professional cry baby. He cries wah,wah, wah, every time somebody reports on him, even before President Obama identified him as a Romney supporter. He is a very wealthy person who has identified himself with extreme policies ( particularly against gay people) and politicians and as such will get scrutiny. FOX has dragged many of President Obama supporters through the gutter and this guy expects to be treated different. O'Reilly engages in hostile language that could easily be construed in the death of a Doctor (Tillson). This whole thing is another desperate attempt to convince people to believe a bunch of garbage. And running around with hair on fire screaming "Obama is a terrorist", is so lame and disgusting. Only the most myopic and uninformed person would fall for it, but that's who watch's FOX.

truebearing

We've only begun to see Obama's bullying. The lower he goes in the polls, the more his narcissistic rage will show. At some point I expect him to lose control of his emotions entirely. He is addicted to power and will have a harder time relinquishing it than the average power obsessed Leftist. Obama really believes he is entitled to power. Look out.

Guest

I would agree 110% , that is why we need to get this BOZO out in November.

truebearing

If he knows he can't win he may create a situation where he can declare martial law. He may decree amnesty for illegal aliens. He and the unions may go for broke and attempt massive rigging of the election. With Holder as AG nothing will be done about any election fraud by Obama's scumbags. It may not be that easy to get him out of power.

Ain't no Dhimmi

The medical term for his condition is. "Pathological Narcissism "

scotsirish

Again, Goebbels would be proud.

StephenD

His parents were both Marxist right? I bet if they were here, they'd be proud of him.

Ronald Johnston

He is only a marxist to cover his real agenda which is destroying America!!!! He is a muslim plant here to create an islamic world!!!!

Beth

Absolutely Ronald! And not enough people are aware of that fact.

To see the REAL obama – go to Youtube and do a search on "obama mocks Moses"

And remember – the sound of muslim prayer call "is the most beautiful sound" to obama.

People need to stop believing in that lie – that obama is a marxist.

Looking4Sanity

It is the nature of anti-Christ that you are never sure what you're looking at when you see it.

Obama is a chimera…a composite of all the world's most evil philosophies and impulses. He can not be said to be all of any one thing because he is the embodiment of ALL bad things.

Right on! and don't forget that his grandad is really from the quixotic universe, can live forever and is hiding out in Socialist Norway because Norway has the highest standard of living and the longest lifespan on earth!

Looking4Sanity

"Despite every effort to contain it, the story imploded,…"

Indeed. Unsupported bags of bull excrement have a way of collapsing on themselves. It's simple physics!

Jon_Adams

How long is this Chicago thug and the left wing bullies going to be allowed to throw their weight around.
Why on earth are the serious charges of Sheriff Joe Arpaio being ignored. The man in the White House
is a criminal, STOP PRETENDING HE IS NOT.

Jim_C

"How long is this Chicago thug and the left wing bullies going to be allowed to throw their weight around?"

About five more years.

"Why on earth are the serious charges of Sheriff Joe Arpaio being ignored?"

Because he's an ignorant dolt.

"The man in the White House is a criminal, STOP PRETENDING HE IS NOT."

Then prosecute him for his "crimes," or shut up, but STOP PRETENDING YOU KNOW SOMETHING WHEN YOU DON'T.

James

After the Republican's completely destroyed the economy again ( just like in 1929), ran up trillions on a fake war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi's, lost millions of jobs because of deregulation, the fools keep saying President Obama is ruining the economy by adding million of jobs (CBO record's), saved the auto industry, helped millions of children/young adults get health insurance previously denied, commanded the end of Al Qaeda leaders, ended prejudice for the first time in history, gave middle lower the biggest tax breaks and hundreds of successful policies. What blind stupidity.

JFogerty

Andrew Vandersloot is not just a “private citizen” he is also a member of Romney’s Presidential Campaign, specifically, as it’s national finance co-chair which is public knowledge (http://www.p2012.org/candidates/romneyorg). Romney’s election campaign also includes Mr Etch a Sketch himself Eric Fehrnstrom. It’s unfortunate what’s happening to Mr Vandersoot’s children but as a member of Romney presidential campaign he is not immune to this type of attention.